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Al Jazeera America to air on Time Warner Cable

Time Warner Cable, the nation's second largest cable TV provider, said Thursday it has agreed to carry Al Jazeera America in its lineup in the coming months, a distribution deal that the network has sought for months.

Al Jazeera America, the recently launched cable news channel funded by the government of Qatar, is entering millions of more households in the United States.

Time Warner Cable, the second-largest U.S. cable TV provider, said Thursday it has agreed to carry Al Jazeera America in its lineup in the coming months, a distribution deal that the upstart network has sought for months.

Financial terms weren't disclosed.

AJAM, as the network is known, will be available to the Digital Basic tier customers of TWC in its two largest markets -- New York and Los Angeles -- by the end of the year. The cable company will introduce the network to other markets by the end of March.

AJAM, the latest offshoot of the Al Jazeera media conglomerate, entered the U.S. market in January by paying about $500 million for Current TV, a struggling cable network founded by Al Gore.

Al Jazeera gutted Current TV's programming and installed its own brand of news operation, focusing on domestic news. Citing Current TV's low ratings, TWC dropped the channel as ownership transferred to AJAM.

TWC's decision was a big blow to AJAM, which had counted on continued carrying of the channel in New York and Los Angeles. The two companies continued their talks as AJAM began airing in August.

"We said in January that we would consider Al Jazeera America. Now that the channel is live, we think that it would be of value to our customers and are pleased to make it available," said Melinda Witmer, TWC's chief video and content officer.

Cable companies have been streamlining channel lineups as they move increasingly to on-demand content. And Time Warner has said Current TV was dropped for low ratings and insisted that the decision wasn't influenced by conservative media critics who fear that AJAM would serve as a mouthpiece for Qatar's government.

With TWC's Digital Basic tier customers totaling about 9 million, AJAM says it will reach nearly 55 million customers once the cable company finishes installing the channel in the lineup.

AJAM will also be available to customers of Bright House Networks, a cable operator whose carriage contracts are negotiated by TWC.

"We appreciate the vote of confidence that Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks have given to our brand of unbiased journalism," said Ehab Al Shihabi, Al Jazeera America's interim CEO. "There is a void in the market for this (type of journalism). I think we were able to demonstrate this to Time Warner Cable."

In an interview, Al Shihabi says AJAM is pursuing -- and expects to land -- similar carriage deals with other cable TV providers in the coming months. Some of the largest cable companies, including Cox Communications and Cablevision, still don't carry the channel. "I'm in the process now," he said.

Partly to entice reluctant cable distributors and viewers who haven't been exposed to the channel, AJAM plans to bulk up its programming by adding new daytime shows, producing more investigative stories and opening domestic bureaus beyond the 12 it operates in the U.S.

It also plans to hire more staffers in the coming months. "We are investing in recruiting the best talent," Al Shihabi said. "We'll be deploying a new strategy. There's a lot of the U.S. that haven't been covered. In certain areas, we'll be opening new bureaus. We'll be pushing very hard."

As part of its contracts with cable TV providers, AJAM doesn't stream its shows or documentaries online. The lack of online video has become a point of contention for Al Jazeera fans, who were accustomed to a flood of streamed content from Al Jazeera English -- AJAM's predecessor in the U.S. -- before it was shut down in August. "Part of our renegotiation with cable (providers) is to have more flexibility for the video content on our website," Al Shihabi said.